The Phillies have been portrayed as being a bit inactive last offseason, which isn’t exactly true, considering that they made some roster additions such as Adolis García and Brad Keller. They also re-signed Kyle Schwarber (which they essentially had to do) and J.T. Realmuto (a fallback from the Bo Bichette fiasco), leading many to hang the dreaded “run it back” sign over the franchise. And maybe that’s fairly accurate, even if Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski wants to couch it in some other language. Something that the club DID do before the 2026 season, however, was to make several changes to Citizens Bank Park.
They jazzed up the team store, took down the clock in center field and — most notably of all — removed the signage for Harry the K’s in left field and rechristened it as the Ghost Energy Deck.
People were not happy.
Some defenders pointed out that this is just the cost of doing business, and team owner John Middleton agrees. Nods to team history only go so far as opposed to real corporate dollars that the organization can use to improve the team or use however they see fit - this is a business, after all. By and large, however, Phillies Nation did not approve of this surprise, and the Kalas family expressed similar sentiments.
Now, with the Phillies unexpectedly languishing at the bottom of the National League (oh, hi, Mets!), some are wondering if this is the immediate manifestation of a Kalas Curse.
Did the Phillies bring the Curse of Harry Kalas upon themselves for 2026, and possibly beyond?
This wouldn’t be the first time that bad juju was offered as an explanation for a baseball team’s failure, with the Curse of the Bambino, the Curse of the Billy Goat, and the still-ongoing Curse of Rocky Colavito serving as main examples. Baseball has always been a superstitious game, and sports fans in general are notorious for this sort of thing, so it only makes sense that stripping the name of a franchise icon to make a buck (or a few million of them) would invite such thinking.
I’ve thought about this but didn’t want to be the one to bring it up…but removing a legends name for Ghost energy is the EXACT type of thing baseball teams get cursed over https://t.co/PUOK5aabhV
— Jimmy King (@Jimmyking35) April 21, 2026
But step back from the ouija board for a second. Is Harry looking down and putting a hex on all of the Phillies’ bats at once to make them incapable of scoring in more than one inning per game? Alec Bohm and Bryson Stott seem like they don’t need any resistance to pull that off. Is our beloved Hall of Fame broadcaster vindictively tilting every ABS challenge and every ball hit down the line away from the team he represented for 38 years, deliberately favoring their opponents? I mean, the mere mention of Taijuan Walker should elicit a response of “no additional curse necessary” for anyone who watches the team.
But if this curse is real, just how long is it expected to last? Surely not forever, because the new branding at the ballpark is here to stay, and the team will only go so far with honoring tradition. Harry the K’s is not coming back. Heck, we’re lucky they’ve at least left Harry’s statue alone and haven’t slapped a big DraftKings logo on the back of it. Yet.
The point is, you can blame a lot of wacky things when your team is down in the dumps, has a long title drought, or even suffers a garden variety loss. I’ve done it myself. But maybe the writing was just on the wall for a Phillies team with an old, expensive core and supporting players who have failed to step up their game. Not to mention an ace who has yet to return from major surgery and might not be himself once he does.
It’s fair to point out that the Phillies fielded some terrible teams in the years between their playoff appearances in 2011 and 2022, and the familiar blue awning of Harry the K’s below PhanaVision was witness to those. So it’s not like the Phillies were world beaters for the entirety of their time in Citizens Bank Park up to the point that Ghost Energy drove a truck full of money onto John Middleton’s compound.
Hopefully the Phillies can recover from this poor start and get themselves back into contention over the next few months. If they don’t, the Curse of Harry Kalas might go into the books as one we talk about in this town for a long time.
So, how about the Phillies just win some games and get this curse talk outta here?
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